I'll Be Home for Christmas
by Lazy Stitch
Summary: Gajeel wouldn't lie. He wished he could go back to the times when all he wanted for Christmas was his two front teeth, not the attention of a celebrity that would probably shit her pants if she ever saw him (which was the normal reaction when people saw his face for the first time). - An AU GaLe/Gajevy holiday fic.


**Disclaimer** : Hiro Mashima owns Fairy Tail

 **\- Santa's Sleigh -**

"We will begin boarding shortly. Would people A1 through A120 please line up by the marked stations?"

All of a sudden, at the tired words from the flight attendant, the seemingly dead terminal came to life. Amongst them, one man was given a wide berth as he stood to his full intimidating height, having previously been curled up in a chair. The windows were fogging from the drastic temperature change from inside the airport to the outside, and he obviously wasn't dressed for the below freezing weather. No, Gajeel Redfox was wearing a ribbed tank top and jeans with so many holes they'd release more heat than they'd keep. He scowled, shifting his backpack on his shoulder, glad that he was being avoided for once. It made getting to the pole marked 55-60 easier.

He leaned against the pole when he got there, not really caring he wasn't A55 and shouldn't be by it. He'd stayed up until four in the morning to reserve his seat on the flight and was rewarded by being A57. Being two people ahead shouldn't make too much of a difference. Besides, if he didn't get a window seat on the wing, he wouldn't be the only one suffering. Gajeel mentally cursed his little shit of a step-cousin, Natsu, for swiping his bottle of Troia. Gajeel and Natsu both got motion sickness very easily, and the Troia medicine was the only medication that worked for them. Gajeel had not been very happy when he realized, sitting in the terminal, that he had a note that read, "Sorry not sorry needed it for my ferry date with Lucy!" instead of his bottle of Troia. The flight out to Alvarez had been shit since he'd been C45 and unable to get a window seat, much less one on the wing. Now, flying back to Magnolia, Gajeel knew he didn't have medicine to relieve his pain, so he'd sucked it up and stayed up late to reserve his seat earlier than he had before. Natsu wasn't going to be able to sit for a week once Gajeel got done kicking his ass – _that_ was going to be the fucker's Christmas present.

He didn't notice when a head of blue hair passed by him to get to the opposite side of the poles where the numbers went from 61 to 120. Had Gajeel seen the young woman, he might have gotten sick right then and there, before even stepping foot on the plane, out of sheer nervousness.

Gajeel checked his phone as he waiting to be let on, not sure why he was doing so since he'd been on it the entire two hours he'd been waiting at the terminal. There was nothing new, and he wasn't going to be getting any messages since it was 4:30 A.M. None of his friends would be awake for at least another six hours (or, since it was winter break, probably not for another nine or ten). He sighed, annoyed and already tightly strung in anticipation of the three-hour flight, ready for the whole ordeal to be over with. All he wanted to do was be back in his bed in Magnolia, snoring away in his boxer briefs and cuddling with his cat, Lily, in the 78 degree weather. While the city of Alvarez might have fallen victim to winter's wrath, Magnolia still stood strong with warm temperatures since it was by the coastline. There were even cute little canals running through the city, complete with friendly people on gondolas. As a teenager, Gajeel had worked as a gondolier, and he enjoyed returning to Magnolia over school breaks and working part time as a gondolier again as stress relief. As long as he had his Troia, that is, and there was always _at least_ a fifty-fifty chance he wouldn't. Natsu was the more adventurous of the two of them, so he was, more often than not, taking Gajeel's Troia because he'd run out of his. It was a Magnolia staple, so Gajeel guessed they were lucky to know about it, but still. Gajeel was responsible enough with his meds to buy a new bottle when he noticed he was running low, but Natsu was just a tad bit more of an airhead than Gajeel was. And since they lived together in Crocus, because they went to the same university, and Magnolia, since their adoptive fathers shared an apartment, there was no escaping Natsu's Troia klepto-tendencies.

"We will now begin boarding A1 though A60. After they board, B1 though B60 may line up. A1 through A60, please have your tickets ready." The stewardess' voice was music to Gajeel's ears. He pulled his pass from his pocket, hastily trying to flatten it out on his leg as the line slowly trudged forward and boarded the plane. After he got to the front and his pass was scanned, Gajeel felt like skipping down the tunnel connected to the plane. While he wasn't excited for the flight, he sure as hell was ready to be home. He'd spent one and a half weeks in hell with his biological father in Alvarez. The asshole was just feeling Gajeel out, seeing if his son was finally worth anything, but that wasn't the part that was hell. Gajeel was used to being compared to drop outs and nobodies (he'd brought that on himself, honestly, since he'd almost dropped out of high school in his sophomore year and looked every bit the delinquent he once was). What he wasn't used to was riding in cars everywhere. Magnolia was a decent sized town, but one could always walk and get to where they were going fast enough. If they were in a rush, a gondola or bike would do the job just fine. On campus, it was the same – people walked, biked, or skateboarded around campus. Alvarez, however, was a city full of business empires. People didn't walk unless they'd parked their car in a garage and had to walk a block to their work building. Gajeel had spent almost every waking moment trying to not hurl all over his father's pressed suit pants (the rest of his time was spent trying not to ogle his father's prosthetic left arm and take it apart in his mind).

Gajeel couldn't help the grin that spread over his face when he claimed one of the window seats overlooking the plane's wing. It had been forever since he cared about where he sat on a plane. Since both he and Natsu got motion sick, before Troia came to be, their adoptive fathers had looked up all the ways to stave off motion sickness – sitting on a window seat overlooking the plane wing was one of the ways to lessen the affect on flights. He shoved the plastic blind up from the bottom of the window, peering out onto the metal plating covering the delicate machinery inside of the wing. As his knees kept accidentally jarring the seat in front of him, Gajeel mentally went over the forces and aerodynamics the wing would experience. He was a fifth year student at Fiore University, about to begin his last semester for getting his Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering. After he graduated, Gajeel planned on attending Bosco University to get a doctorate in aerospace engineering; he was eagerly awaiting the arrival of his acceptance or rejection letter from them. Since he'd always been motion sick (or just couldn't remember a time where he hadn't gotten it), he'd always been a bit obsessed with things that moved and defied gravity since he wanted to know _why_ they made him sick. As it turned out, he was a bit of a natural with calculus and physics, so his career choice had been set ever since he got his life on the right track.

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" A quiet voice broke Gajeel's concentration as he tried to figure out exactly how much the plane would weigh after all the passengers boarded it.

"Ya might not want ta sit right ne…" Gajeel's words died on his tongue and made a strategic retreat when he turned to see what woman was willing to risk sitting next to someone that looked like he'd blend in with his surroundings in a prison courtyard.

"Yer _tiny_."

Gajeel sometimes wondered how he didn't constantly have bad breath because his foot was always shoved up his mouth. His lips quirked into what he thought was an apologetic smile, but, if he ever listened to his adoptive father (which he did, all the time), Gajeel knew it was probably a vile, vulgar grin that showed off his sharp canines.

"Th-that's not an answer!" Levy McGarden's pale face flushed. Gajeel somewhat wished Natsu was there so he could compare the color of her rosy cheeks to his step-cousin's obnoxiously pink hair. He was pretty sure the shades would be a close match.

"Well, it ain't a yes, either. So sit yer ass down 'fore someone thinks I'm harassin' ya 'r somethin'." Gajeel grunted, taking an appreciative look at said ass when Levy turned around to go back to the aisle. He figured he'd blown his chance (wouldn't have been the first time, either, or the last), but he was pleasantly surprised when she faced him again in the aisle to shove her larger carry-on bag into the overhead storage compartment.

"Ya can reach that high, Shrimp? Need any help?" Gajeel's smile turned positively devilish at his remark, causing Levy to scowl and jut out her lower lip.

"You're very rude, you know." She retaliated, diverting her attention from him when her bag started to fall. Gajeel quirked an eyebrow, halfway to his feet to help her when her arms dropped, bag safe in the compartment.

"You're _really_ huge."

Gajeel's other eyebrow rose to join its counterpart at her comment. It seemed both of them lacked a filter before they spoke, since Levy's blush darkened and she covered her mouth with her hands.

"Well, that's a fact. Ain't nothin' to be embarrassed 'r sorry for. 'Sides, I've been sayin' worse to ya." He shrugged, flopping back down into his seat and then immediately regretted it when his elbows landed harshly on the armrests. Hissing in annoyance, Gajeel was surprised when Levy sat down in the seat right next to him instead of the aisle seat. A few moments of silence passed between them as the other passengers continued to board the plane. Levy got more than her fair share of stares and slack jaws. Watching her out of the corner of his eye, Gajeel noticed how she seemed to shrink next to him, avoiding all eye contact.

"Would you mind doing me a favor?" Her voice was so quiet that Gajeel thought he'd imagined it, at first. But he saw how her face reddened and knew it wasn't just him concocting fantasies again (because, hot _damn_ , he'd had quite a few of those with her saying that exact sentence, and none of them were likely to happen, _ever_ ).

"Shoot, Shortie. If ya need a body to hide, I ain't yer guy. I do know someone, though. Ya just didn't find out from me. Some dipshit named Natsu Ethian Dragneel – I can spell it out fer ya, if ya want – told ya. That'll teach th' little punk that I'm finally done with his shit."

Gajeel was aware he was babbling some. It was a side of him he'd forgotten he had. The last time he'd been babbling was when he was asking Metalicana, his adoptive father, if he could adopt Lily from the pound. He'd been so nervous since it had only been a week after he'd almost dropped out of high school, and he was still grounded "for eternity." He'd been skipping his last period (sometimes last two) to hang out at the animal shelter, and he'd taken a liking to Lily. Lily was black and had a scar over his eye, and he didn't get along with other animals. Because of those reasons, no one visiting the shelter paid any attention to him. He turned to putty in Gajeel's arms, though, and Gajeel had done the same when Lily started purring in his lap. After almost dropping out, he'd been banned from skipping class ("I have my ways of finding out, boy. Don't ya _dare_ test me," Metalicana had said, and that was the first time in his life that Gajeel had been truly scared) and was ordered to go straight home from school, and so he'd had to stop hanging out with Lily. After a week of not seeing him, the workers at the shelter decided Gajeel had given up on Lily and decided to put the cat down. Mystogan, a senior that worked at the shelter, found Gajeel at school and told him about Lily's predicament, and Gajeel had swallowed his pride to beg Metalicana to let him adopt the cat. Gajeel supposed this meant he babbled when he really liked something (which made sense, since most people he hung out with told him to shut up about planes), but he wasn't the type to dwell on that sort of thing.

"Er, no, I don't even – _do I really look like someone who needs to hide a dead body_?!" Levy hissed, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at Gajeel. He just shrugged.

"Yer Levy McSmartie-Pants-Extraordinaire-Garden, goin' back to her hometown of Magnolia fer th' holidays. Maybe that's where ya feel yer safe enough to pull off somethin' ya need ta hide a body for." As soon as the words left his mouth, Gajeel wished he could, at the very least, slide down in his seat. But, then again, if he could, he'd be at eye level with Levy, which was what he wanted to avoid, so maybe it was a good thing he felt like a sardine packed into a can.

"…"

"Ya know, a plebian like me meeting celebrities like ya by chance goes a lot more smoothly in the movies… And I never thought I'd come across ya like this, bein' an asshole and probably about five minutes away from vomiting all over yer tiny feet…"

Of all the fantasies he'd had about meeting Levy McGarden, Gajeel had never come up with something like this. In retrospect he should have, since he was about as awkward and dorky as a cat (Natsu's comparison that Metalicana, after hearing it, mentioned at least twice a day), but Gajeel liked to think he was suave. He might not like talking to people that much, but _Lily_ enjoyed his company.

… Maybe he was secretly a cat, after all…

"That sounded better in your head, didn't it?" Levy asked, voice caught between grossed out and nonplussed.

"Didn't think that one through at all, actually…" Gajeel pouted, glaring into the back of the seat in front of him like it had caused him to word vomit.

"Do you ever think your words through? Because you technically _were_ harassing me earlier when you said you didn't want people to think you were." Levy continued. Gajeel decided the person who cleaned the plane after the last flight ( _if_ someone cleaned it at all – he wasn't sure about that) had done a piss poor job because his eyes detected something sticky and sugary on the bottom of the pullout tray hooked to the back of the chair.

"Not generally, no." He admitted, knowing he was just digging himself into a deeper hole, but he wasn't raised to be a liar. Okay, technically he had been (his biological father was a businessman and an asshole, so he supposed it wasn't _too_ weird), but Metalicana had beaten it out of him ( _literally_ ) after he'd adopted Gajeel when Gajeel was fourteen and full of teenaged angst. Besides… Gajeel glanced over at Levy, and scowled even deeper. He couldn't lie to that pretty face.

"Not fun on the receiving side of the teasing, is it?" She smiled at him. Gajeel snorted, rolling his eyes.

"Not many people have the guts to actually try it, Shortie." He grumbled, trying to adjust his body to get the optimum amount of leg room. He was sorely tempted to ask one of the people passing them what number they were (was the last group, the C group boarding?) since, if the plane was moving, he wouldn't be in any shape to talk to Levy. It wasn't every day he met a smart, gorgeous woman (who was, admittedly, on the short side) and wanted to crawl in a hole and disappear, but Levy was a special case. On top of being smaller than he thought she was, she was also not acting in the way he'd always imagined her to (which, okay, is entirely his fault since he constructed her attitude based on her looks and appearances on television, but a guy's gotta dream when he sees someone so perfect).

"Yeah, I can see why. You look very intimidating with all those piercings and scars and that tattoo." Levy laughed, pointing a slender finger at the dragon tattoo covering Gajeel's entire left arm and shoulder. He got the distinct feeling she was poking fun at him, like she didn't find him scary looking at all, even though her words were innocent enough. He wasn't sure how to feel about that.

"I could fit ya in my pocket, Shrimp." Gajeel mumbled, in a half-hearted attempt to boost his own deflating ego. He wasn't sure if Levy heard him or not, but she didn't react to his words. Instead, she turned her bright eyes to him, another brilliant smile stretched across her lips.

"So, since you know who I am, would you mind doing me a favor?" It had to be illegal, her looking at him like that and asking for a favor. _It had to be_. Gajeel would definitely arrest Levy if he could for it since there was absolutely no way he was going to say no to her.

"What'cha want, Pipsqueak?" He sighed, accepting his fate. Natsu would laugh at Gajeel if he were there with them. Gajeel could hear Natsu's annoying laugh and voice saying, "Already whipped and she doesn't even know your name, Metal Face! Damn, you're such a _wimp_!"

"Would you switch seats with me, please?"

Gajeel blinked once. Twice. Then, he turned to face Levy completely, eyebrows quirked downward over his eyes. It was his look of confusion, but Metalicana said it made him look like an angry demon.

"Not a chance in _hell_ , Shrimp."

 **A/N** : _Yo. Happy holidays, y'all (even tho I'm late). Just throwing this out there now so I know I'll finish it. It's gonna be a two-shot, I think. Maybe three idk. These things evolve by themselves._

 _~ Stitch_


End file.
